The Ugly Stepsister Strikes Back

  The Ugly Stepsister

  Strikes Back

  Sariah Wilson

  Copyright © Sariah Wilson, 2012

  Cover design and illustration © Kevin Wilson.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, or stored in a database or retrieval system, using any means or method now known or hereafter devised, without the prior written permission of the copyright holder.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Books Written as Sariah S. Wilson

  Secrets in Zarahemla

  Desire of Our Hearts

  Servant to a King

  For Kirk Shaw

  and for Kollin, miracle baby extraordinaire

  Chapter 1

  My stepsister Ella was ruining my life. She was blonde, petite, beautiful, talented, popular, and worst of all, she was nice.

  My dad married Ella's mom, Rose, when we were both two. It was the year after my mother left me. After Ella's mom divorced my dad, Ella still came and lived with us every summer, and every other Christmas.

  We never went to the same school until Ella's mom died from breast cancer at the end of our sophomore year. Ella moved in immediately. Nobody knew where her biological dad was (he bailed before Ella was even born). She belonged with us.

  At first I was glad to have her. It was fun having a stepsister. Or, it was fun up until the beginning of our junior year. Over that summer, Ella changed everything. Her hairstyle, her makeup, and her clothes. She exercised every day. Ate carrots and crap like that. She got unbelievably gorgeous (and it probably didn't hurt that her mom had been an actual Swedish Bikini Team model).

  And she was new. The boys went crazy.

  That was the first thing in my List of Grievances where Ella was concerned.

  My List of Grievances was something I started right after the end of junior year. It was all the ways Ella had wronged me. And as I just mentioned:

  Wrong the First: Guys fell all over themselves for her. There was nothing worse than just standing there pretending like it didn't bother you while guys drooled all over her and didn't even say hi to you. And the whole time, I secretly wanted to scream, "Hey, see me? I'm a girl too!" Even my guy best friend since junior high seemed to be falling under Ella's spell.

  Wrong the Second: Ella made Angelina Jolie look selfish. Ella lived to volunteer. While everyone else was easing into the school year, Ella was already planning a masquerade ball for some save the orphan/whale/environment cause. She had so many charities she supported I honestly couldn't keep track. There was no competing with someone who spent most of her free time thinking about other people.

  Wrong the Third: Her name. Ella Christensen. So pretty. Roll right off your tongue beautiful. My name? Mattie Lowe. Actually, it's worse than that. My real name? Matilda. I blamed my mother (and sometimes my dad, for not running any interference when my mother picked out the name). During one of our forced online chats, she said she named me after some old queen, that Matilda's a strong name and meant "mighty in battle." I was pretty sure it meant "my mom hates me." Fortunately, when I was little, my dad called me Tilly. That worked fine until the first day of kindergarten. Even at the tender age of five I understood that I couldn't be Silly Tilly for the rest of my life. I came home and demanded my dad change my name. He refused. Instead he came up with a new nickname for me, and I started going by Mattie at school, Tilly at home. Ella's just Ella. She didn't have to have a dozen nicknames just to get through her day.

  Wrong the Fourth: She spent hours cleaning up around the house. Bathrooms, her bedroom, the living room, you name it and Ella had probably cleaned it recently. The other day I caught her in the kitchen actually scrubbing the floor on her hands and knees! Every time my father stumbled across her cleaning something, it made him ask me why I was so lazy. He assigned me chores that I had to pretend to do until he forgot and I could go back to doing nothing. As far as I was concerned, she was putting our housekeeper's job in jeopardy, which I refused to do, because I was not selfish like that.

  Wrong the Fifth: Ella had this ability to make everything look amazing. Dance floors, people's faces, clothes; anything she touched magically looked better. She even liked to sew her own stuff like she was getting ready to try out for "Project Runway" or something. I acknowledged my lack of fashion sense many years ago, and had stuck to basic black ever since. I was only adventurous with my hair color, which was a sort of fuchsia-y shade. But not so adventurous that I'd ever used a permanent hair dye. Just semi-permanent or temporary. (And I should probably mention that Ella was a natural blonde. Yes, it made me want to puke, too.)

  Wrong the Sixth: Ella was a cheerleader. Enough said.

  Wrong the Worst: Ella was dating her perfect counterpart—he was handsome, athletic, funny, nice, tall (so tall it made me crazy – at 6'2" he was one of the tallest guys at school. Being 5'11" made me sort of a tall guy connoisseur and it always aggravated me to see all that height being wasted on teeny-tiny girls like Ella). He even drove a sports car. His name was Jake Kingston.

  And I was completely, totally, head-over-heels in love with him.

  Chapter 2

  I sat in front of the headmistress's office thinking, not surprisingly, about Jake.

  I spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about Jake. It was like a sickness, really. People were always saying things like teenagers don't know what love is, and we mistook lust for the real thing, blah, blah, blah. I wished I only lusted after Jake. Life would be much easier then. I could get over him if lust was the only factor.

  Don't get me wrong—he was definitely lustalicious. Dark hair, dark eyes, a jawline that looked like Michelangelo himself chiseled it out of stone. Totally gorgeous. But there was this emotional component there. I cared about him.

  Since I spent a lot of time observing him, I saw all the little things he did every day. Like the time he helped the girl from the Special Ed. class pick up her books that she dropped, and then walked with her to her next class. Everyone else just walked by. Not Jake.

  He routinely stopped his stupid friends from picking on other kids. His friend, Scott Martin, was the worst. But Jake managed to rein him in.

  Jake was always smiling this thousand-watt, movie star/model smile and saying hi to everyone that said hi to him. He was so nice. He never tried to make people feel like they were worthless losers. Unlike Scott and his girlfriend, Mercedes. Their only goal in life seemed to consist of insulting and belittling everyone around them.

  He did these things quietly. Not like he was ashamed of his good tendencies, but more in a he didn't need to show off sort of way. Or like people seeing him doing it would take away from the specialness of it.

  It felt like something we shared, even though he wasn't aware that I knew what an awesome guy he was.

  He was smart and good at everything. I was so in love with him.

  And I wasn't sure if he even knew that I existed.

  I sighed, because that was what unrequited love made you do. Sigh with self-pity.

  I needed a distraction. Besides thinking about Jake, I'd been sitting out here for a while worrying and wondering when the headmistress would call me in. I was pretty sure that Ms. Rathbone made us sit outside and wait this long on purpose. To give us time to work ourselves up into a frenzy about possible punishments. She'd probably learned that in one of her doctorate programs. Like everything else at Malibu Prep, she was the best. She had all these framed degree certificate things behind her des
k. I suspected that that some of them were fake.

  I stood up and started reading the bulletin board that hung outside the main office. It had the usual announcements, the sign-up sheets for marching band (blank), an after hours cooking course with that famous chef on TV who swore at everyone (halfway full) and one for student government candidates. For a second I thought my Jake obsession was now making me see things, but no, there was Jake's name. As the only candidate for senior class president. Of course. I let out a little snort of amusement. Who would be dumb enough to run against him?

  I saw that Scott Martin planned to run for the vice-president position. I gave his name the dirty look I wished I could give him. Loud, obnoxious and crude, he was like the anti-Jake. I couldn't figure out why they were friends. Most kids got their giggles out on the first day of school when the teachers called me Matilda as they took roll, but then they got over it. Not Scott Martin. He'd called me Matilda since the eighth grade graduation dance. He had asked me to dance during a slow song and I stammered out a no. Scott was cute, but not quite tall enough and I didn't know how to dance. We would have looked ridiculous. His face had flushed red and ever since then he'd hated me. I think it was because I publicly embarrassed him (although that hadn't been my intent), but Ella claimed it was because he liked me and I'd turned him down. I'd tried to explain to her that she needed to stop seeing the world through pretty-girl glasses. It skewed her perceptions.

  I flicked my gaze up and saw the advertisements for upcoming charity events. Other schools had dances and proms. We had galas, masquerade balls and black-tie affairs.

  I should probably mention that Malibu Prep was a really nice (read: expensive and exclusive) school. My dad even taught a semester here as a guest instructor for the advanced art class.

  Wait. I forgot to tell you about my dad. He was only the world-renowned artist, William Lowe. Most artists weren't famous until they died (mostly because once they'd died they couldn't create any more art, so it would make it more valuable). Wikipedia said Dad was a child prodigy (a fact he would neither confirm nor deny), and his fame had only increased since then. I didn't really get his art. It looked like big blobs of color to me, but critics called it "amazing," "masterful," "bold," and "worth more than your house."

  So, like everyone else here, we had plenty of money. But other than my manga addiction, I wasn't really the shopping type. Ella was the shopaholic of the family, but she would use her own money that she'd earned from her part-time job instead of the credit card my dad had given us as our allowances. (That should probably go on my List of Grievances as I'd been lectured about how Ella was such a hardworking go-getter and I was a lazy sack).

  "Ms. Lowe?"

  I jumped at the sound of my last name. I get startled frequently, because I spent most of my time in my own head. With Jake. Reality was not nearly as much fun.

  "Please join me."

  Honestly, Ms. Rathbone scared me a little. She was like a cross between a drill sergeant and a Southern debutante.

  "Sit."

  For a second I contemplated asking her whether she wanted me to roll over and beg too, but didn't dare. I immediately dropped into one of the chairs in front of her desk. She didn't have one of those stereotypical offices with stuffed, worn couches or bookshelves that overflowed with books. Instead it looked like something out of the IKEA catalog. All the furniture in the room was sleek and modern and, like the chairs outside of her office, highly uncomfortable.

  She opened a file on her desk and started to read it. It was probably my English teacher's List of Grievances against me. I would own up to my misbehavior today. I had started out already annoyed because my best friend, Trent, had to park halfway across the parking lot and I ended up being late for calculus. That was not technically my fault. Seniors should've had priority parking next to the school. After suffering through four years of high school I thought the very least they could do was let us park closer. Neither Trent nor Ella would care that they were late. Trent because he was all antiestablishment and Ella because the teachers probably found it adorable when she showed up after class started.

  This, of course, could've all been fixed if my dad would've just gotten us a car of our own so Ella and I could get there on time, but he'd mumbled something about "character building" and had refused.

  So, I was already in a mood when Ms. Aprils started in on me. Well, not on me, but how great Mark Twain was. I should have just let it go. But I didn't.

  Ms. Rathbone continued to read in silence, her forehead furrowing as much as it could despite the Botox injections. She had this very cool shade of silver hair, and big brown eyes obscured by her glasses. My fingers itched to draw her as a manga character. I'd make her eyes even bigger, give her a long silver Mohawk and some kind of warrior get-up. Black with silver buckles, I decided. I saw a long ruler propped in the corner and pictured altering it as her own personal samurai sword. I stuck my hands under my legs to keep from reaching for the blank paper and pencils sitting on the edge of Ms. Rathbone's desk. I figured she wouldn't appreciate my imagination.

  Instead of drawing, I started running my tongue over my teeth. It was my new favorite pastime. I couldn't help it. Only a few days ago I had been freed from the prison of my braces and it was a revelation to feel these nice, smooth teeth. I had worn braces for so long that it was like I had to relearn my mouth.

  "You said that Mark Twain was a, wait, let me make sure I'm reading this right." Ms. Rathbone put her finger under the writing and read each word slowly. "'A racist, sexist pig.'"

  True. I had also said that I didn't think he was witty at all, but as that wasn't in her report, I wasn't about to admit to it.

  It probably didn't help matters that Ms. Aprils had done her master's thesis on the works of Twain and that half the English room was decorated like some sort of Mark Twain shrine.

  Ms. Rathbone peered at me over her reading glasses, waiting for my response. Her eyes bored into me, and I recognized that look. She was trying to shake me; to read my face to see if I had left things out.

  Unfortunately for her, she was unaware of my secret superpower. I had a killer poker face. My dad said he would have been a professional poker player if the artist thing hadn't worked out, and thanks to all his training, I was sort of a card shark and in total control of my outward reactions. I didn't have a tell.

  I held my features steady. She wouldn't get anything out of me that I didn't want to admit to.

  "Yes, I said that."

  Ms. Rathbone took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. She looked tired. "Mattie, it's only the second day of school."

  It all felt unfair. It wasn't my fault that Ms. Aprils was singularly obsessed with the idea that Mark Twain was some sort of literary superhero who could do no wrong. She couldn't fathom that other people didn't worship him. I disliked him just for what he'd said about digging Jane Austen up and beating her to death with her own shinbone. Because Jane Austen was all sorts of awesome.

  "I'm sorry, Ms. Rathbone." I started to say it wouldn't happen again, but I just couldn't. Sometimes stuff just came out of my mouth even when I didn't want it to. I had a low threshold for stupidity.

  "You will be serving detention today for your belligerence in class, and I expect you to apologize to Ms. Aprils."

  I grimaced at the idea of apologizing to Ms. Aprils. Malibu Prep had zero tolerance for disrespect to the staff. I had more leeway than some of the other students thanks to my quasi-minority status, but I knew there would still be an apology to my teacher in my immediate future. As far as sentences went, so far mine was pretty light.

  I wanted to say I wouldn't do it again, but we both knew it would be a lie.

  "You will try to refrain next time?"

  "I will do my best," I promised. There, that was honest. "So, if we're done…" I grabbed my backpack.

  Ms. Rathbone held up her left hand, her eyes still trained on my file. "Not yet."

  What now? I hadn't done anything else. As she'd s
o helpfully pointed out, it was only the second day of school. I hadn't had time to mess up.

  "I see that you failed to fulfill your volunteer requirements from last semester." I wanted to groan. We were required by the school to do four hours of community service per month each semester. Last semester I'd been a tad depressed. That was when Ella and Jake had become a couple. How could I have concentrated on doing things for other people when my heart was breaking?

  Not to mention that I had never really understood this concept. How was I "volunteering" when they were forcing me to do it? It was more like involunteering at that point. Or unpaid child labor. If they were going to make us volunteer, they could've at least given us school credit for it.

  "Because from your file I see that you want to go to Wellesley." I didn't correct her. There was no point in trying to explain the whole complicated family mess in the space of a few minutes.

  I didn't want to go to Wellesley. My mother wanted me to go to Wellesley. That was where she had gone.

  My dad wanted me to go to UCLA. That was where he had gone.

  My mother wanted me to study sculpting. My father wanted me to study painting.

  I was not interested in any of the above.

  Ms. Rathbone was still talking. I forced myself to pay attention. "These schools look at the whole person, not just your grades. You have no extracurriculars. What about hobbies?"

  I couldn't tell her about the manga. I could already hear myself explaining it. "Well, Ms. Rathbone, manga is the word for Japanese comics. Anime is the animated version of manga…" It would have been a long conversation. Plus, I would run the risk of not only potentially boring her to death (I'd never met anyone else who liked manga as much as I did and I could get a little excited about it), but she might tell my dad. I knew my dad loved me and would tell me my work was good (even if it wasn't), but he was such a serious artist that I would feel embarrassed if he found out. Plus, he might feel obligated to tell my mother, and then things would get very bad very quickly.